Explorations in Data-viz, among other things

Recently, I was approached by O’Reilly books for a little advice on the lay of the land in Python, Javascript and Web-visualization. Well, one thing lead to another and I ended up agreeing to write a book for O’Reilly on that very subject. There’s a lot of work and the money, as you’ll read all over the web, isn’t stellar (unless you make one of those tech-book hits) but I’ve a lot of O’Reilly books on my shelf and consider them, even in this digital day and age, one of the best crud-filters around. In short, in my head and in my hand, O’Reilly books have weight and I’m more than a little flattered to have been asked.

The festive season probably wasn’t the best time to begin such an adventure but that’s what the clock dictated so, after some frenetic coming-to-terms with new software (O’Reilly’s Atlas publishing platform), workflows, formats and the like, I managed to get the first two draft chapters in last week. I get a short <phew> and it’s on to the next eight I’ve got to write by April. O’Reillys are, understandably, hard taskmasters and I’m suddenly faced with all these writing deadlines and flashbacks to the last year of my PhD.

I aim to be blogging about the book chapters as they take shape and I’ll save a full run down of the books aims for another post but for now I just want to mention a mailing-list I’m starting to try and keep any interested parties up to speed and, more importantly, try and get some feedback as to people’s needs in this area. I’ve a pretty good idea I think but would love some input as to anything I’ve missed, should emphasize, or maybe just leave out all together.

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